Reply to Ward 6 and Miner ES: Grassroots Movement for Dual Language (Mandarin) Program

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Reply to "Ward 6 and Miner ES: Grassroots Movement for Dual Language (Mandarin) Program"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Over 17% of students at Miner are homeless.  Providing a curriculum that transfers well to other schools, and can be joined mid-year if necessary, is very important for those students.  I cannot think of something much more opposed to that than Mandarin immersion.

However, if the hope is to get a program like Tyler's where there are single and dual-language classrooms in each grade, and the organizers expect all the homeless kids will go in the English-only track, I commend them for their creativity.  Some parents will do almost anything--including have their kids learn a language most of them cannot support at home--in order to keep away from poor people.[/quote]

If DCPS opened a Mandarin immersion program at JKLMM then you would be complaining that DCPS is opening a program that appeals to HSES parents in the "high rent" district leaving out poor kids by distance.  Opening a Mandarin immersion program at Miner or JKLMM,  DCPS can't win.  Someone will always be bitching.  Probably easier to not offer Mandarin immersion (or any other specialized program) to make the peanut gallery happy.[/quote]

Or you could offer it at Thomson, which is accessible from all parts of the city, is 19% Asian (I don't know how many families speak Mandarin though), and has 60% proficiency in reading and 71% in math.  Or pick a school that feeds into Roosevelt, since it's supposed to be an international academy and maybe there's a chance to attract some Yu Ying families to that feeder pattern if DCI doesn't appeal to them.  Or close a school that is severely under-enrolled (or open up a vacant school) and make it a citywide lottery Mandarin immersion academy. But changing a neighborhood school that is already struggling doesn't make much sense to me, especially without tying in the destination middle and high school.[/quote]

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